


sadistic human nature

by llgf



Series: days now end as they've begun [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angry Sex, Bartenders, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Private Investigators, a jessica jones au, basically they're in love but they don't know how to say it, tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 07:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11824029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llgf/pseuds/llgf
Summary: “I just want to talk,” she says.“To who?”She bites her tongue too hard when she hears his voice. Same accent, same grave voice, and something in it that reminds her of how it sounded against her skin.He's hard liquor, a drink of tequila. He numbed her lips and burned her throat. He’s cigarette smoke, and she hates everything about it.(Because she doesn't have it anymore.)





	sadistic human nature

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [garglyswoof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/works) for her beta'ing. Follow her on [her tumblr](http://garglyswoof.tumblr.com/) really you should

There’s a red sweater on the chair, alone in the corner of the room, that she’d rather not talk about. It’s worn out, old, probably dusty and smelly. There are stains on it - sweet and sour sauce and beer - Chirrut and Baze, in their restaurant downstairs, have the best sesame chicken in San Francisco. 

(She remembers being cold, eating rice and fortune cookies, then not being cold anymore, his lips on her neck and cold again.) 

Jyn can’t bring herself to give it back. 

So it stays lonely on the chair, in the corner. 

But her gaze keeps coming back to it tonight, she shouldn’t have focused her camera on the bar across the street. Sitting on the metal staircase with another beer bottle in her hand, she’d watched - through a lens - smoke pluming from his mouth, his fingers holding a cigarette. 

Jyn had almost let her camera fall when she’d felt his gaze on her, but he was only looking at the smoke and the night.

(She’d made sure a street lamp's light hid her. She knows how to hide.)

A sting on her cheek brings her off the metal stairs and away from the red sweater. “You ruined our lives!” the customer in front of her screams, a broken bottle neck in hand. 

Jyn walks on flowers with her heavy boots. It’s her job. On geraniums and lilies, she breaks the white picket fence with a single picture. She’s paid to tear down lives and relationships, and more often than not, she finds herself being hit on the head by an unhappy customer. They want to know but refuse to accept the truth, even if it's on a thousand photographs. Sadistic human nature. 

He slams his enormous hand on her desk, on the picture she’s shown him - his wife, kissing another man. ”It’s your fault,” he screams again. 

She can feel a wet streak down her face and the coppery taste of blood in her mouth; there’s a piece of glass near her eye. 

But Jyn is used to stepping on geraniums and lilies. 

So she opens a drawer, takes the little gun, and puts it softly on the desk. “I am going to ask you to leave,” she says calmly, but anger is grinding her teeth together. 

The customer points an accusing finger at her, stumbles back, his gaze frantic on both her and the gun. Bodhi opens the door - where Erso Investigations is written on the frosted glass, black thick letters, better than the cardboard she had before - just in time for the patron to flee. 

She lets her head fall in her hands. She wants to rub her eyes like a child and go to sleep.

“They ask for this,” Jyn says, to no one in particular, or her palms maybe, even if there’s an audience with Bodhi fidgeting in the room. 

She can feel the shard of glass in her cheek. She would have cleaned it with vodka or rum - one for her cuts, another for a drink - but Bodhi’s worried. 

Jyn doesn’t like the effect she has on him. He looks older, wrinkles between his brows from worrying too much. He has shitty taste in friends. She tries to smile, to tell him that everything’s fine, but it looks like a grimace. 

She goes to the bathroom to clean up, gritting her teeth when she gets the piece of glass out. A butterfly bandage on her cheekbone decorates her face - it feels like it's her usual attire, she doesn't remember the last time she’s had a face free of cuts and bruises. 

She can hear Bodhi in the next room, clinking bottles together, cleaning up her desk. 

“Go home Bodhi, I'm fine,” she lies, because there are blood stains on her shirt and her head is still pounding. 

She comes back and he's still there, a glass of water in an old jam jar and paracetamol in his hands. 

Jyn avoids his gaze. She can't look at him when there's worry in his eyes, she always confuses it with pity. But she grabs the white tablet, puts it on her tongue and drinks. Jyn blinks, trying to adjust to the little sting in her cheek, and sticks her tongue out, “Good?”

Bodhi nods with a smile. 

She should say thank you, he deserves it, she knows it, and for more than water and paracetamol. But she can only give him a little smile. 

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Jyn says, her index finger between his brows, trying to magically get rid of the wrinkle. 

“Really?”

“Don't worry about me.” 

She takes a look at her white shirt, little red stains on the collar. She needs another shirt and a drink. 

It's raining outside, and she's cold and hurt. It stirs up old memories, some waiting on a lonely chair in the corner. So her next words leave her lips without too much thought, “I'm going to grab a drink.”

Sadistic human nature. 

“I don't think it's a good idea,” she hears Bodhi say. He has this ability to read her mind, and she often feels bad about not being able to do the same with him, for him. He has been a good shoulder to fall onto. “You shouldn't see him again.” 

Asking why would be pointless, she already knows the reason. But what Bodhi doesn't know is that he's not the one running away every time, Jyn is. She goes away far from his arms and lips and sweet Spanish words, because she has nothing to give back - not even words and sentences, she lets her blood boil inside and the butterflies battling wildly in her guts die; she allows a smile, but never more. 

But she can't possibly admit that she's the only one to blame for being hurt. 

“I’ll be fine,” says Jyn, wondering if it tastes like a lie on her lips. 

She grabs a jacket and the red sweater, opens the door for her and Bodhi.

He takes his key to open the door right next to hers, but he stops moving, keeps his head low and  says, “Just -” Jyn is looking at the back of his neck as he pauses, and if she wasn't Jyn, if she was capable of putting her hand on his shoulder to bring him closer, to thank him again and again simply for being there, for being her friend, she would, really. “- stay safe, ok?”

(Last time she’d hugged someone, her arms around his neck, she hadn't wanted to let go. 

But she had.)

She smiles at the back of his head, and he disappears behind a blue door. 

Jyn ties the sweater around her waist with a grimace - she can still feel the sting in her cheek, but she's preparing herself to feel it even more deeply when she sees him. 

It's across the street, there’s no neon sign to indicate that it's a bar, just some people smoking with drinks in hand, and soft music emerging from the place. 

Jyn opens the doors, looking around - the soft yellow light, the wood table, and the posters on the wall. 

Nothing has changed. But nothing is like the first time. She knows this place, she knows the guy behind the bar, and it's a whole different world now.

She takes a breath, an ounce of courage, before she goes to the bar. She takes a seat and there's no way to avoid him now. 

His hair is longer, face has more scruff, but he has the same taste in shirts. 

Maybe everything  _ had  _ changed. 

(Like they’d rebuilt the room entirely, precisely as it was after a storm.)

Maybe he doesn't want to see her. She's been cruel to him, leaving him in the cold - without a sweater. She’s murmured empty promises, kissed his palms but never put a name to his number in her phone. 

Their story has been about taking, drinking, sharing only a bed at night and keeping her thoughts to herself. 

Jyn doesn't know what’s brought her here. 

(Sadistic human nature.)

But she's here now, and if there's one thing Jyn doesn't do, it’s back down. 

So, she folds a bill into a paper plane and waits for him to notice her. 

(He used to make paper planes out of his tips. She kept one made from a 20 pesos bill.)

“Jyn?”

That's not the voice she wanted to hear. 

“What are you doing here?” 

He has the same monotonous tone she remembers. 

“I am just taking a drink, Kay.”

“This is not a good idea.” She’s heard that before. “You should leave.”

“I am not here to fight, I want to give him something back.” A half-lie, she just made up a reason for being here in apparently hostile territory. 

“I'll give it to him.”

Jyn bites her tongue. Kay has always been suspicious of her, sometimes even antagonistic. He reminds her of Bodhi somehow, concerned and protective. 

“I just want to talk,” she says. 

“To who?”

She bites her tongue too hard when she hears his voice. Same accent, same grave voice, and something in it that reminds her of how it sounded against her skin. 

He's hard liquor, a drink of tequila. He numbed her lips and burned her throat. He’s cigarette smoke, and she hates everything about it. 

(Because she doesn't have it anymore.)

“Jyn,” Cassian greets, almost sternly.

She only gives him a small smile and a nod. 

“What can I get you?”

“She was just leaving,” interrupts Kay. 

“It's ok, Kay. I'm fine.”

She’s heard that before, once again. 

His friend just shrugs, not in defeat, but in warning. 

“So?” Cassian’s voice makes her focus on him entirely, and with Kay’s retreating silhouette she can finally breathe. 

“Rum and Coke, please.”

“It hasn’t changed,” Cassian nods and turns around. She can see his shoulders relaxing as soon as she's out of his sight. 

Jyn takes her time looking at him.

He glides a glass towards her - there’s no pink umbrella or lemon on the drink - and asks, “Hope you're not here to take pictures of my clients?”

His voice is a monotone and almost bored, as if he isn’t trying to be social and courteous with her.  _ No _ , he’s simply talking about that because he has nothing to say, he is  _ not  _ reminiscing about how they first met. 

(She’d drank as if she was veritably thirsty: head in the air, she emptied her glass in one go. Bodhi liked to pretend that it’s to give her courage, but Jyn never needed alcohol to do foolish things. She’d taken her phone and pretended to send a message while she focused her camera on the fat bald man in the corner of the room, his arm around another fat bald man.

His wife would be thrilled when she learnt that not only was her husband involved in an extramarital relationship, but it was with his colleague from work, the one who invited him to play golf every Wednesday.

_ Jackpot _ . 

There would be weeping and  _ whys _ , but also green bills.

Her phone was out of her hands in an instant. "We don’t take pictures of my customers without their consent,” Cassian had said. 

She’d looked at his eyes and smile and at all it could possibly mean.

That night had finished with a kiss on her lips and a shared bed.)

Tonight, the lack of song in his words is a way for him to show her that he’s still  _ angry _ , and perhaps even that he doesn’t want her here, but  _ she doesn’t really want to be here either.  _

“No. I am taking a break for tonight.”

“Oh really?” he asks mockingly while raising his chin to her cheek, where the bandage sits. 

It makes her fingers go to it. “The dangers of the job,” Jyn tries to joke with a small smile. 

But clearly he’s not in the mood, because he only nods and mumbles, “Sure.”

She hands him the little paper plane, but it doesn't even bring a smile to his face. 

Has he stopped folding bills into paper planes? Is that the only thing that’s changed about him?

“What did you want to talk about?” he finally asks after brushing his face with his hands, as if their conversation - or lack of - is exhausting him. 

He’s pulling some strings, pushing some buttons, he wants to affect her as much as he can.  

“I -” Jyn starts, but she's never been good with speeches and eloquence, “I don't know.”

“Well, then -”

“I have your sweater,” she says hastily. 

Cassian exhales, avoids her gaze, but seems to be deep in thought “Listen, my shift is over in-” he looks at his watch, “ten minutes. Why don't we talk upstairs?”

She wonders if meeting him in his flat above the bar is a great idea. If  _ this  _ place is filled with memories, then his flat is overflowing. 

But, “Sure,” she says. 

Jyn goes upstairs, she knows the way, and waits in front of the red door with a stop sign. 

She tries not to remember how he used to push her in the corner, kissing her, his leg between hers, while the crowd buzzed downstairs. 

She sits on the stairs, untying his sweater to fold it in her lap. 

When he comes up, he doesn't give her a glance, just opens the door, throws the key in a bowl, and falls on the sofa. 

Again, nothing has changed. Almost like she was here yesterday; the furniture, the carpets, they haven’t moved. 

Cassian lights up a cigarette and lets the ashes fall in a sun-bleached seashell. 

(“It's from home,” he’d said once, “Mexico.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Everyday. But I like it here,” he’d added, holding her closer.)

He hands her the packet with a raised eyebrow. 

“No, thanks. I quit.”

He nods, mumbling “good” with the cigarette between his lips. 

Neither of them are talking, Cassian just looking at the smoke coming out of his own mouth and Jyn playing with the hem of his red sweater. 

Jyn has never been good with words, with expressing herself. She's better at observing, analyzing, and that's what makes her good for her job - and absolutely awful for a relationship. 

But she notices the stain and if there's no other way to start this conversation she's afraid to have - “I didn't wash it,” she states, handing him the folded sweater. “Sorry.”

Cassian doesn't seem to react, doesn't reach out or turn his head, “You can keep it. I know you like it.”

Jyn wants to answer  _ not anymore _ , it has lost its novelty and warmth. It’s an old memory now, rotting in her flat and stinking up the air - she can’t breathe.

(But does she really want to let go?)

The  _ I know you like it  _ is not lost on her, it's another way to say  _ I know you _ . 

She leaves it on his armchair, without a word, without  _ I can't keep it and I don't know why.  _ She’s fidgeting, doesn't know what to do with her hands and mind. 

“That's it?” he asks, and there's a hardness in his voice that makes her wince. Cassian has always been transparent, she can hear in his voice or see in his features how he felt. When he's mad, he grits his teeth and spits harsh words. “That's all you wanted to say?”

“No,” Jyn bites her lip, shrugs shyly. She wishes she could be more eloquent right now, like Chirrut, who always had words to offer, but she has nothing. 

Cassian seems bent on starting a discussion, he has more questions than she has answers for. “Do you finally want to talk to me?”

Jyn feels the hit in her gut, but keeps her voice calm, “It’s not like that, Cassian.”

She knows it infuriates him, how composed she always seems to be. If only he could take a peek inside, he would see the tempest. 

“How is it then? I don’t know anything about you, I only know that you have a job that asks you to care about strangers, and yet -” 

“I cared -” she starts, but loses her line of thought “ - you,” these are soft words, but Jyn sounds more defensive; there's even venom in her words she’s let slip. 

“Really? Why didn’t you say so?” He sounds so disbelieving Jyn wants to scream at him.

(“What about leaving,” Cassian stopped kissing her neck and she grunted, displeased, “I don’t know,” he’d continued playfully, enjoying the little frown she had, “a toothbrush here?”

Jyn didn’t know what to answer, so she’d kissed him, rolling him on his back.)

What is she supposed to say? That she  _ cared a little too much _ ? That she’s broken and stupid? Does she have to get on her knees and cry? “It's just-” But she doesn't have the words and Jyn is losing her temper, her fists clench and unclench in a rhythm, “You clearly have a lot to say, Cassian, is that why I am here? To listen to another lecture from you?” 

“No lecture from me. We're not together, right?” 

He finally looks at her, with those eyes. She hates his eyes, so warm and kind, she started hating them when she had to let him go. His words and tone, however, are anything but kind, it's another punch in the guts.

“No we are not. You aren’t perfect either, Cassian. Always wanting more and more from me,  _ more than me. _ ”

“Why didn't you tell me? If I fucking knew who you were - All I was asking for were some fucking words.”

“You seem to have a lot on your mind,” she retorts with a strangled voice. 

“I do. I have a lot of things to say to you. But it doesn't matter anymore.”

Another punch, he's good at this. “You couldn't say it to me when it mattered?”

“Funny. You didn't say  _ anything  _ when it mattered.”

( _ 12 missed calls.  _ Jyn read on her phone.  _ 6 messages _ . 

_ Call me please  _

_ Tell me what's happening  _

_ You don't have to talk to me just tell me youre fine. a dot is enough _

Jyn’d fled. She hadn’t answered, mostly because she hadn’t known the  _ why _ or even the  _ what _ , but the  _ who  _ was crystal clear: Jyn. It was her fault it was over.)

Moon-shaped marks on her palm from clenching her fist too hard; Jyn wants to yell at him, take his  _ fucking  _ sweater and rip it in tiny pieces and let them  _ fucking  _ snow in his apartment, shake everything up like a snow globe. “I screwed up, ok? Is that what you wanted to hear?” she screams, taking an involuntary step towards him. 

“Yes!” He stands up too, getting closer, his cigarette forgotten in the empty shell. He bears a face she recognizes - clenched jaw, raised eyebrows and so much rage, “I want to hear that and everything else! Like, _fuck you Cassian_ , _this tea is fucking disgusting, Cassian!_ I want you to talk to me! Anything!”

“Well then,  _ fuck you Cassian!” _

_ “Fuck you Jyn!” _

Cassian is bending over her, he’s so tall, and so close, “Personal space?” she tries to ask, but it gets stuck in her throat - it's not rage anymore, it's something else. 

“I don't give a fuck about personal space right now.”

Jyn doesn't know who starts it, really, but his hands are on her thighs, lifting her up so they can kiss. 

His lips are punishing, almost, so she gives it back when she tugs his hair at the nape of his neck- his hair is longer and she likes it. He groans, and he's angry and fierce, squeezing her thighs a little too hard, pushing her against the wall irreverently. 

She crosses her legs around his waist to free his hands, because she wants them everywhere, on her hips, on her breast, cupping her face, his thumb in her mouth, her tongue out to taste the skin while his lips are kissing her neck. 

She never forgot about it, and somehow he hasn’t either, he remembers exactly where he has to bite to make her moan. 

Like an old couple waltzing, they never forget the steps. 

Jyn hates it, he's bringing memories back while making them impossible to fully blossom in her heart and mind because his fingers make her tremble with need. 

And finally his hands are on her breast, under her shirt, and she doesn't know where to focus. 

“Cassian,” she whispers, biting her lip, because he's pushing down the cup of her bra, but there’s still too many layers, “undress me.” 

She lets her head fall back against the wall and brings her hands to his belt. 

He’s freeing her hair. His hand cups the back of her head, bringing her jaw to his lips and tongue. 

She manages to unbutton his jeans, but in a swift movement she's lying on his couch, Cassian above her, and she's helpless. 

He's looking at her, he's still mad but there's longing there - it makes her heart clench. Cassian is a gorgeous man, and she's afraid his beauty had deteriorated with the months she spent away - even if she still takes pictures, hidden behind the street lamp. She takes a second to look at him, the shirt, the visible underwear, his waist and skin. He is nothing like marble statues, on the contrary, he's always been too warm for that. 

He grabs her right leg, and takes off her boot and sock, leaves her foot on his shoulder, and repeats the undressing with her other leg. “Take off your shirt, Jyn,” he says with a grave voice. 

She obeys; her jacket, and shirt, and her bra are on the floor. Cassian is unbuttoning her pants, taking her panties off with deft fingers, he lets them glide down, before hooking her legs back around him, his hands caressing her thighs. Jyn's naked in front of him. Helpless, naked and wanting, she welcomes him - the memories he brings with him, his anger and longing - with open arms. 

She tries to lower his pants with her foot, but he bends down and starts peppering kisses on her stomach. 

Cassian swears in Spanish, and she remembers lessons he gave her late at night, but it's the curve of his tongue that she's most fascinated by right now. 

His lips are on her breast now. Jyn is biting her tongue, her hands gliding under his collar so she can feel more skin, more Cassian - how his shoulder blades move while he frantically caresses her body. 

“Cassian,” she urges.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispers against her neck, and he uses the same biting tone, but it has another meaning when he’s kissing her collarbone. 

“I want you,” and there's more to it than one word, they both know it, but they don't have to care right now. They’re having another battle, they're dancing, they're feeling, they're fucking. 

Her words seem enough. He sits up and gets rid of his shirt, and Jyn has her eyes fixed on his skin.  _ How she missed it so much _ , human contact, tangled limbs, feeling entirely naked, even more that when she's only wearing her skin. 

Cassian’s looking at her, his hands rubbing her thighs while he notes and memorizes every curve and patch of skin. She’s missed those eyes, again, especially when they look at her like that. 

Jyn's arching her back, calling for him, when he finally lowers his jeans and underwear. 

She’s seen him, held him naked, but there's something more now, as if he’s also seeing her real and deep nakedness. 

_ Let him see _ , her mind screams at her,  _ let him take it, whatever you have to give. _

(More than a post-it with a heart written on it that she threw away before he could see it. 

More than a pat on the back when she's proud of him.

More than a kiss on his lips when he says  _ I love you _ .)

“Do you want to?” Cassian asks again, and perhaps he wants to be sure, perhaps he needs to convince himself, or maybe he just wants to hear it again. 

“I want you, all of you, Cassian.”

Cassian licks his fingers and wets her cunt before he grasps himself - 

And he gives, she takes; she gives and he takes. He's in her in more ways than one.

His thrusts are as frantic as the words he's whispering in her ear.  _ Jyn, Jyn, Jyn.  _

Their skin brushes, there's no space between them, and it's always been about this, being too close and not close enough. 

He makes her body undulate with waves of pleasure, and she holds him so tightly. 

How could she have run away from this? From him? Because she can't even imagine letting go now. 

One of her legs is on the backrest, her other foot on his thigh, maybe they're going to fall on the ground, but she can't care, not when he's so deep within her. 

“Tell me,” Cassian keeps repeating, “tell me, Jyn,  _ dime.” _

“More,” she answers, and he puts her leg on his shoulder. 

She could have said everything she meant with this word, and Jyn is ready to whisper it when she has nothing else to focus on but  _ them _ .

Cassian’s a passionate man, he does everything with fierceness, and maybe that's what she’s scared of, but she can feel it in her grip, the muscles that play beneath, he's thrumming. And yes,  _ more  _ means  _ more,  _ and she feels her pleasure spread like wildfire, making her hold him closer. Euphoric, she doesn’t know if she laughs or screams, but she closes her eyes and he’s still thrusting, “Come, Jyn,” Cassian says. 

She does,  _ oh,  _ so beautifully. She feels it in her stomach, from her toes to her eyelashes. Jyn’s holding him tightly while his own body is reacting, unrhythmically he thrusts, kissing her shoulder, he groans. 

He stops, they’re both spent, tangled in an embrace. Jyn doesn’t remember how it feels not to have his skin on hers. 

She feels his breath on her neck, and she decides she can listen to it a little bit more before she has to move, and Cassian seems to feel the same. 

They take their time, and Jyn learns how to be soft and loving openly in his arms. 

He caresses her back and shoulders, she draws waves on his back, but Jyn could draw a question mark instead, because the big question is yet to come,  _ what now? _

But before she can open her mouth, he shifts behind her, brings her closer - her back to his chest - and covers them with a sheet. 

Cassian’s shushing her, perhaps he's hearing her too-loud mind. 

“We’ll talk -” Cassian says, or  _ promises _ , “later.”

“Later.” Jyn's fine with that. She'll talk and if she'll have to leave, she'll make sure to steal his gray scarf, there lying on the chair alone. 

That way she'll have to come back and talk again, and maybe she'll bring a toothbrush. 


End file.
